Book News: What Will 'Win' Oddest Title Of The Year?

The cover of one of the finalists for the Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year.

Originally published on February 22, 2013 11:51 am

The daily lowdown on books, publishing, and the occasional author behaving badly.

The shortlist for the annual Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year was announced, and includes gems such as Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop by Reginald Bakeley and How Tea Cosies Changed the World by Loani Prior. The prize was created in 1978, and the first one went to Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude Mice, edited by Tatsuji Nomura. This year's winner will be announced on March 22.

The U.K.'s Royal Mail unveiled a series of Jane Austen postage stamps for the 200th anniversary of Pride and Prejudice. There are six stamps, one for each of her major novels.

The Army suspended the promotion to lieutenant colonel (in the Reserves) of Paula Broadwell, the biographer at the center of the scandal that brought down then-CIA Director David Petraeus last November. Broadwell is being investigated for keeping classified documents in her home while working on her biography of Petraeus, All In. She was promoted in August, but, according to the AP, "Under Army rules, a promotion can be delayed if new information about a person comes to light within six months of the promotion."

To This Day, an animated anti-bullying poem by Canadian writer Shane Koyczan has gone viral, with more than two million views on YouTube as of Friday morning.

Edward Gorey, the writer and illustrator of magnificently creepy children's books, would have been 88 today. Google gives him his very own Doodle.